Brighton 2017

Hey friends,

Aidan and I went to Brighton for a couple of days and it has been so much fun! I've been wanting to visit Brighton even before I moved to the UK almost two years ago but the train tickets are so expensive so I've put it off until Virgin Trains had their £10 offer to London and I managed to get return tickets for half the price! We spent a total of 3 days 2 nights there and I love every little bit of it!

This is going to be a long, long post! Can't remember the last time I wrote a post this long so take your time, have a cuppa and enjoy this!

DAY ONE

The train ride from Manchester to Brighton takes around three hours with a transit in London. The journey was pretty bad thanks to this family who clearly didn't understand what 'Quiet Coach' is for. They were making so much noise, yelling and talking and being on the phone plus all the horrible stuff. Everyone else was clearly annoyed and Aidan went to ask some IC on the train and all he said was "if it bothers you, look for another seat." A class service Virgin 🙄👏🏼. But anyway, tweeted to the Virgin trains people and immediately after their reply the train conductor made an announcement for the people in the quiet coach to basically shut up but they just don't know how to be civilised and it had to take the train ticket checker person to come in and ask them to stfu before it was silent. By then we were more than half way done with the journey, UGH. Crappy people who have to respect for others around them followed by crappy service provided by people who can't be bothered with their jobs. Sighpie.

Our train was from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston that took around 2 hours. We then took a tube down from Euston to Victoria which costed about £5 for a single day return. Took the next train from London Victoria to Brighton which took roughly an hour!

We arrived and made our way from the station to the Holiday Inn Seafront that was around 20minutes walk!

The room for two nights was £167 total! It is not too shabby a place, decent sized room and toilet. 5minutes walk to the West Pier and a Sainsbury's which is up the road. The town centre is about 10 minutes walk and Brighton Pier is around 20minutes!

Throughout the entire trip we basically got to places by foot except on one night we took an Uber home cause our feet were killing us. It was a short 5 to 6 minutes ride for £7! Jeez

By the time we arrived at the hotel and settle down it was almost 530pm so we decided to have our dinner somewhere close. We went for Aberdeen Steakhouse which is just 2 minutes from the hotel. With our tastecard it was £36 for two sides and two steaks. I went for the T bone while Aidan had the ribeye.

Honestly the reviews set our expectations really high which is why we thought the price was not too bad for a highly raved place. But we were really disappointed cause even though we both ordered our steak to be done medium, mine came almost well done and Aidan's was close to rare.

Wouldn't recommend this place though, you could probably get a better deal elsewhere but hey, at least our steak craves was satisfied (well..almost!)

After dinner we took a walk to the Brighton Pier and played a couple of games in the arcade and then we went to the Casino to take a look. It was my first time in one and it was so much calmer than I thought it would be. No thanks to the HK dramas I grew up watching, it was not clad with scantily dressed women with a large area filled with cigarette smoke. It was quite chill and even though there were a couple of reckless and rowdy players around the others were fine. Aidan had a go at blackjack with a £10 limit (which at one point he won £30 but lost it all) and we promptly went back to the hotel and called it a night!

DAY TWO

Woke up to the rainiest of days but since it was our only full day in Brighton we might as well make full use of it! We left the hotel pretty early and made our way to the town centre to look for some breakfast.

Found this store - Bert's Homestore and it is made of all the cutest little things from Easter treats to home decor to toys and homeware!

On our way into town we saw Mcdonald's advertising their new menu item - cheesy bacon flatbread. For some reason we really wanted to have it at that time and totally forgotten that in places like Mcdonald's, the pictures are SOLEY for display purposes.

😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐

Made our way through the town centre and headed to The Lanes for a little look-see!

Brighton is filled with such positive vibes and despite the gloomy weather I still felt great and pretty excited.

If I'm not wrong this is the Ben's Cookies that opened a store back in SG at the Wisma Atrium and the queues are always massive. No idea why I didn't get one and yes I do regret it now...

Took this picture to remind myself to never wear my Yeezys out for a full day of walking because it butchered my feet. I will not betray the beloved NMDs again T.T

A rubber ducky shop! Would make such great gifts but I think it was £7.99 for one, a bit hefty for a rubber duck isn't it.

The first order of business was definitely to try the cronuts at dumdums

I went for the Almond & Pistachio, although I should have gotten with the salted caramel one but it was like 1030am and I didn't really want an overly sweet sweet treat.

Aidan got himself coffee and minis and posed like this without knowing how much of a fail this pose was LOL

Attempt two

The cronut was pretty good but it gets a bit sickly if you have the whole thing to yourself. My favourite part of it is that it's coated with cinnamon sugar - my ultimate favourite!

Aidan decided to go on a coffee adventure and he calls this The Wake Up Call (coffee from Maccies)

The American Dream (because donuts..)

Apparently all of these are Easter chocolate eggs?! Omg?? there was a french bull dog one in the store and it was hugeeee

Made our way through this park with a lovely view that reminds me of an Aladdin Castle to head to the North Laine

While walking around the North Laine, Aidan found a coffeeshop which he was looking for after reading really good reviews and he got really excited!

It's called the Small Batch Coffee and according to him, it's one of the best coffee he has had in years!? So yes, if you're a coffee fan, you should pop by and give them a go.

This is a sign after my own heart - chai latte AND soy options? Yes please!

Popped into this little juice store and got a green juice - I LOVE green juices so much! There are a few interesting types that I would love to try some day!

After wandering around the lanes, we wanted to head to somewhere with a bit of a shelter cause it was drizzling and all so we went to look for some ice cream!

Of course Aidan found this and asked for a picture with this snail. Don't the two suddenly somehow look alike?!

And because Zoella raves so much about this, we went in for a couple of scoops despite the wet weather!

I honestly expected it to be like any other ice cream but Boho Gelato was different! Maybe it's just me but sorbet flavours are mostly fruity like lemon etc but they have flavours like speculoos?! Speculoos sorbet?! Hello hello?! I tried a couple of flavours and ordered honey & lavender plus some cookies and cream!

Would highly recommend the honey & lavender because it is so unique? There are bits of lavender (?) in it and I don't personally like the smell and taste of honey but this was so nice! And I think that lavender has some calming effect or it could be my brain but it was just a nice little treat!

We then went on a little hunt for the colourful beach huts because come on, did you really go to Brighton if you didn't get a picture of them huts? (you know I'm kidding but you also know what I mean)

Realised the hut was no where near the pier so we just went on the beach for a little walk and snap some pics and stepped on the rocks? It was so weird because I've grown up with sandy beaches but a beach with rocks was very different but nice!

Aidan was so upset that the 99 flake ice cream costed £1.95

And forced me to do this

Not going to lie, it was not easy to walk around! Basically sinking with every step and my instinct tells me to run up and down the slopes but BAD IDEA. You'll just be at the same spot but just kicking the rocks everywhere, like into your shoe.

I am super scared of falling down and breaking my neck especially when I'm standing on just a little elevated platform so this was the best pose I could give as compared to ...

This one who is jumping about everywhere and what not!

This was the one most terrifying experience I had ever. It looks like its nothing but when you're standing there and you hear the waves coming up, nope just nope.

Popped onto the pier for some arcade fun and escape the drizzle!

He looks so bored here but little did he know kids would 'worship' him 😁

ALWAYS excited for arcade time!

So the night before we wanted to try this game but there was this woman that was hogging up 1 machine and the moment a someone leaves a machine she push her kids onto it so basically her entire family was playing this machine. We went there and it was empty so we got on it so quick and honestly it's like the coin machine but instead of getting back coins you get tickets!

I'm ashamed to say how much we've spent but in 2 hours we got about 2.3k tickets!

Remember what I said about kids worshipping him? Yeap basically there was a crowd that swarmed behind him. Trust me, I was surprised as well since I was running around the arcade playing the claw machines and came back to this.

Also surprisingly a lot of people would ask you how you get that many tickets when they see you collecting them out of the machines. Side note - when I dress casually, people seem to give me their tickets? I was in Namco the other day with Aidan but I was at a game by myself and like 2 groups of people just came up and gave me their tickets! Thank you kind strangers!

So our 2.3k worth of tickets we got:

Loads and loafs of board games!

For some reason we both are getting into board games and since we are staying at home more these days, some board games would help us kill time and spend more time together! We also got a couple of key chains and money bank! Gave 100 tickets to this little kid cause he wanted a sword but didn't have enough so with our tickets he can get a sword and a bubble tube thingy!

Went for a nice walk back to the hotel to put our loots down and have a change of clothes!

of course Aidan has to ruin a nice picture of the hut! If you look closely you can see the loots on his shoulder.

Aidan had to ask a stranger where the colourful beach huts were so we can head there after putting our stuff down!

Another little chalk drawing! So cute I love it. We were in the room when we saw the sun came out for a peek and we raced to the beach for a walk down to the beach huts!

After a long walk we finally found the colourful huts!

I don't look like it but we were swarmed by flies while taking these pics! I guess it's because it gotten a little warmer and they were everywhere! Got them on our faces, shirts, glasses, hair etc gross!

After the beach huts it was near sunset so we decided to take a stroll along the beach and sit along by the West Pier for a bit.

Definitely creeping this grandma cause she was so cute going around snapping pics with her husband. Life goals af.

After a little time by the beach we took a walk back to the North Laine to this Japanese store Pompoko which apparently most locals go to for their meals.

It was pretty affordable and bearing it mind we were famished so we had 3 mains and like 4 sides for £26! Some of the dishes were hits and some were misses. The katsu curry and chicken don was pretty good but the yakisoba was a great miss. For sides, the tempura prawns and takoyaki were amazing but the gyoza was meh. It was a pretty snug restaurant and it gets a little busy during dinner time so go a little earlier if you want a seat!

Went back to the hotel at about 8pm ish and took a nap after playing Line Up 4 and woke up at nearly midnight! Of course we had to be greedy asses and order take away like we do in Ediburgh.

After the supper we did a little packing to check out the next day and I went to sleep while Aidan stayed up watching Scorpion.

DAY THREE

After checking out we decided to spend our last couple of hours in Brighton visiting cafes for breakfast and a cuppa after! Aidan met this man in Small Batch Coffee the day before and he suggested a couple of places to visit for good coffee and one of it was Cafe Coho so we headed there for breakfast!

It was a lovely little shop and it has outside and upstairs seating!

He saw me taking pics and moved over for a pose!

I swear the waiter at the back is the long lost middle child in the franco family! -I am not a creep-

We both went for eggs benedict and it was amazing! The hollandaise sauce was so, so on point. Highly recommend you try it the next time you're in Brighton!

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And that is all on Brighton! I had such an enjoyable time and even though I wish the weather was better but it was so much fun. Will definitely plan another trip back and proper go through all the cafes again. Also apologies for the quality of the pictures though, for some reason Blogger has compromised the quality of it. The pictures were taken with my iPhone 7!

Hope you've enjoyed this post, leave a little comment if you did and look forward to my next post! Another side note, I'll be posting ONCE a week instead of twice as I've did the last two weeks! It seems like you guys prefer it to go up on Fridays instead of Wednesdays and Fridays!

See you next week! xx

Cheryl Elisha Wong

Hello you! Thank you for taking time to read the post! Hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. Feel free to reach out to me and hope to see you back here soon! Cheers, X.

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The Blogger

Hello! I'm Cheryl, a Singaporean based in Manchester and welcome to my blog where I'm a blogger of all things Beauty, Lifestyle, Travel and anything in between! I hope that you enjoy your stay here and feel free to connect with me through my Email,
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